Seminole County Supervisor of Elections has been named Florida secretary of state.

During Christmas week, many of us were understandably focused on family and the holidays.

But news kept on breaking. And since I figure many of you were busy with presents (and trying to figure out what the heck figgy pudding is), today I have a recap of some of the stories — and angles — you may have missed.

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Ertel’s promotion

Let’s start with congratulations for Seminole County elections chief Mike Ertel, who soon will become Florida’s elections chief.

Gov.-elect Ron DeSantis made a solid choice in tapping the Seminole Republican to be Florida’s next secretary of state.

Ertel has run an efficient and responsive office. He’s also refused to get bogged down in partisanship.

Let’s hope he can do the same at the state level — where sensible leadership is sorely needed.

Ertel’s first test as a statewide official may be implementing Amendment 4 — the constitutional initiative that voters overwhelmingly approved in November restoring voting rights to former felons.

Detzner and a few others have tried to suggest this issue is complicated. It’s not. In The entire amendment was two sentences. It says that people who have completed “all terms of their sentence including parole or probation” get to vote.

Here’s hoping Ertel helps make the voters’ will a reality — and the office respected again. I think he can do both.

My first thought was: Which one? The whistleblower claims filed by his former CFO? Or the whistleblower claims filed by his former spokeswoman?

As it turned it, it was neither.

The story detailed whistleblower claims lodged by a third one of Singh’s former employees — a former human resources manager who claimed he was wrongfully terminated and who had alleged racial discrimination.

Singh’s office agreed to pay the former employee $84,000, while admitting no wrongdoing, to settle the complaint.

Singh has said he did no wrong in any of these cases — that he is the victim of unfounded accusations. Still, taxpayers are already paying a price.

Aside from this $84,000 settlement, there was also the $395-an-hour Singh’s office paid former Judge Belvin Perry to investigate complaints from the other two. (Perry’s report didn’t substantiate the complaints against Singh, but the complainants weren’t satisfied with Perry’s report and went to federal court.)

Plus, Singh’s office has shelled out another $42,000 to a Tallahassee-based PR firm run by ex-Gov. Jeb Bush’s former communications director that bills as much as $375 an hour.

I don’t know how much of former Bush staffer Alia Faraj-Johnson’s time is dedicated to the accusations against Singh (she wouldn’t say), but if she billed the office even 15 minutes, for instance, for the time she spent sending me two emails last month, that’s $93.75 right there.

I started looking around and found similar stories throughout the U.S. Leaders in states red and blue — with widely contrasting policy approaches — all claiming their policies made the difference on jobs.

The reality, of course, is that the entire country has been on a hiring binge for eight years. Nationally, unemployment has dropped from 10 percent to 4 percent.

It’s good news. But wages are largely stagnant. And be wary about what any politician — Democrat or Republican — claims on that front. Because most of them are simply riding a national wave.